As the year comes to an end, and our calendars offer usstructured time away from work to look back at the year gone by,something of a collective consciousness opens up. People who don'ttypically think about charity or giving throughout the year areencouraged to do so. A mass movement around the holiday givingseason encourages friends and colleagues to donate their time andmoney to help those in need. Yet, in spite of (or perhaps becauseof) the holiday spirit, corporate philanthropy sometimes feelscomplicated.

There are many misconceptions around corporate giving – the mostcommon being that it's a self-serving excuse to make companies lookbetter. Perhaps this cynicism stems from a sense of corporateconvolution around the practice. What's the most strategicinitiative to garner media attention? Will there be tax write-offs?What's our initiative's clever catchphrase? Too many people getcaught up in the "corporate" part and forget about the real reasonto be philanthropic: to give.